How to Use Schema Markup to Boost Your SEO and CTR in 2024

Intro

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a competitive undertaking for many businesses.

With 93% of all web activities beginning on a search engine (and Google regularly modifying its algorithms), obtaining a top spot in the search engine results pages (SERPs) is no easy feat.

But we’re going to let you in on a little secret. What if we told you there was an easier way to achieve a top spot in the SERPs for highly competitive keywords?

That’s where schema markup comes into play. Schema markup makes it possible to land those coveted rich and featured snippets (which score 42% more clicks than organic results) for your target keywords.

In this guide, we’ll explain everything you need to know about schema markup to boost your website’s SEO and click-through rate (CTR) in 2024.

What is Schema Markup?

Schema markup is a code standard that gives search engines instructions on what your content is about. When you use schema markup, you’re essentially “marking up” your relevant content using a unique semantic vocabulary.

That way, Google’s search crawlers can analyze your website pages, index them, and rank them accordingly. The purpose of using schema markup is to rank for rich and featured snippets.

Nowadays, Google has started to display rich and featured snippets on their SERPs. One study found that Google displayed a featured snippet 86.6% of the time on desktops.

Why? These snippets aim to give people quick insights and additional information on top of organic and paid search results.

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Ultimately, rich and featured snippets make search engines more user-friendly. However, adding schema markup to your website can seem intimidating to novice SEOs and marketers.

Why? Schema markup involves programming languages like HTML and looks like machine instructions with a simple glance.

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In reality, modern SEO tools like schema.org make it easy to integrate schema markup. In fact, Google offers its own tool that makes navigating schema markup (and testing it) convenient for all digital marketers.

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What are the Different Types of Schema Markup?

Generally speaking, schema markup is code that tells major search engines what your content is all about. As a result, search engines can present internet users with more detailed and relevant search results.

There are over 30 kinds of structured data features. These schema types include:

• Subscription and paywalled content
• Employer aggregate
• Sitelinks search box
• Discussion forum
• Practice problem
• Estimated salary
• Image metadata
• Education Q&A
• Review snippet
• Vacation rental
• Learning video
• Local business
• Vehicle listing
• Home activity
• Software app
• Book actions
• Organization
• Breadcrumb
• Profile page
• Math solver
• Course info
• Job posting
• Fact Check
• Speakable
• Course list
• Carousel
• Dataset
• Product
• Recipe
• Article
• Event
• Movie
• Video
• FAQ
• Q&A

Let’s dive into a few examples of what schema markup looks like. Let’s say you wanted to find out the business hours of a local restaurant. You visit Google and type in the restaurant’s name to do so.

Here’s an example of what you’d find:

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Also, let’s say you’re trying to find the best men’s leather pants online. Google offers reviews so you can vet each option.

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Finally, here’s an example of a featured snippet:

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As you can see, you can create schema markup for virtually any type of content, from online movie reviews to even home improvement tutorials.

What is Structured Data?

Schema markup is closely tied to structured data. That is, you’re creating structured data every time you use schema markup.

Here’s how both terms are similar and different. Schema markup is a type of structured data. Schematic markup gives context to specific elements in your content, such as lists, authors, and FAQs.

All you’re doing is telling Google and other major search engines that these specific elements should stand out and contribute to a rich or featured snippet. On the other hand, structured data is simply information arranged in a standardized format.

Schema markup is an ultimate example of structured data because when you markup specific content elements, you’re compiling clean code that’s easy for search engines to read.

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In computer science, machines rely on structured data to understand and process key information. Regarding search engines like Google and Bing, structured data is equally as important.

What are Rich Snippets?

So far, we’ve mentioned a lot about rich and featured snippets. In this section, we’re going to cover rich snippets.

Rich snippets are small excerpts of content that give internet users more context about a subject. They can be found on search engine results pages for any keyword.

For example, if you type in “Dwayne Johnson,” you’re bound to find rich snippets about his height, age, social media profiles, and the recent movies he’s played in.

On top of that, internet users can even see a Wikipedia entry with biographical information about him. Rich snippets allow people to skim search results without clicking on search results.

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Since all this information is readily available, internet users can get the data they’re looking for immediately. Google prioritizes rich snippets because Google has always been about providing the best customer experience.

Rich snippets supply additional data to the user and either answer their query or give them a deeper understanding of a search result before they click it.

Thus, if you embrace schema markup and assign rich snippets to your content, you can increase your online visibility for your target keywords.

For example, if you’re a growing influencer, you can use schema markup to give Google more information about your niche, age, social media profiles, and published content.

What are Featured Snippets?

Featured snippets are a bit different from rich snippets. They appear above every search result (even paid ads) for primary keywords.

You can almost always find featured snippets for keywords that contain questions. For example, a featured snippet would likely give you the answer if you wanted to find out where they filmed the TV series Yellowstone.

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In the same way, if you had a question about digital marketing, a featured snippet could supersede all of the search results and provide you with an answer.

Gaining a featured snippet for your content can help you increase your online exposure and draw more traffic to your website. Also, having a featured snippet increases the authoritativeness of your website.

To achieve a featured snippet, you’ll need to use schema markup. One way of doing so is by adding schema markup to FAQs.

Let’s say that you’re writing a blog about how long it takes for SEO results to appear. You can add a list of long-tail keywords and questions to the FAQs at the bottom of the post.

Finally, you can create schema markup for the FAQs and ensure your answers pop up every time someone searches for the corresponding questions.

Benefits of Schema Markup

As you can see, using schema markup can be highly beneficial to your business. Here are some of the benefits you can expect when deploying this digital marketing strategy:

• Schema markup helps search engines better understand your content and website pages. In turn, they can rank them higher in organic search results.
• With schema markup, you can increase your CTR rates and average position for primary and secondary keywords.
• Websites that embrace schema markup can often surpass paid search results, which is impossible to do otherwise.
• Rich and featured snippets from schema markup prove that you’re creating trustworthy and reliable content that aligns with Google’s E-E-A-T standards.
• Schema markup can help you grow your website traffic exponentially since rich and featured snippets can potentially bring in regular website users on a daily basis.

Ultimately, all digital marketing teams should use schema markup. Not only can your website benefit from it, but you’ll also be improving Google’s functionality and user experience (UX)‌.

Luckily, employing schema markup is‌ a straightforward process. In the next section, we’ll show you how.

How to Create Schema Markup

Google enables webmasters and SEOs to create schema markup using their Structured Data Markup Helper.

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This tool lets you choose which schema markup you want to create, generate structured data, and add the code snippet to your website.

Here are some steps so you can get started:

1. Visit Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper.
2. Select the type of data you want to create. There are several options available for schema markup.
3. Paste the URL of the website page or content you want to mark up.
4. Select the content elements you want to mark up.
5. Create HTML code when you’re finished.
6. Add the code to your website.
7. Use the Structured Data Testing Tool to review and test your schema markup.

Final Words

Overall, using schema markup is the perfect way to boost your website’s SEO and CTR in 2024. By leading more people to your website, you can increase your conversion rate and sales.

Google and other software providers offer tools that help marketers easily create schema markup. Follow the tips in this article, and you shouldn’t have any problems creating your own.

What’s more, you’ll be able to take advantage of rich and featured snippet opportunities to advance your SEO strategy across all types of content.